


constellations that i’ve sought

by ghostheart



Category: Stardew Valley (Video Game)
Genre: College, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-24
Updated: 2017-09-24
Packaged: 2019-01-04 23:19:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,958
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12178467
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ghostheart/pseuds/ghostheart
Summary: Sometimes her fingers brush against his when she hands him his drink, and the image of her fairy floss hair floods his eyes.





	constellations that i’ve sought

**Author's Note:**

> *strums guitar* i love bad tropes i’d die for anything
> 
> major bonus points if you can guess what city i (self-indulgently) based zuzu on
> 
> title is from polish girl by neon indian

Every now and again, Emily’s fingers brush against his when she hands him his drink, and the image of her fairy floss hair floods his eyes.

“Here you go,” she says today, same as always. He’s amazed her smile has never faltered after everything — the years, the relationships, his myriad mistakes.

“Thanks.” Shane exhumes tip money from the depths of his pockets. “So how’s your day been?”

“Oh, I can’t complain. Except for the fact that it seems as though my sage plant has died.” She scowls as she cleans the glasses in the sink. “I just don’t know what I’m doing wrong. It’s the third one that’s done that this year!”

He chuckles despite himself and averts his eyes away from her.

“Well, that’s neither here nor there. But I heard that _someone_ is getting married soon!”

His gaze snaps back to her and she’s beaming, her rose quartz earrings swinging from the abruptness with which she turned her head.

“Yeah. It’s not for another month, though.”

“Still, that’s exciting! Ezra seems like a well-balanced man.”

He isn’t sure what that means, although knowing her, she’s probably referring to his chakras or some shit.

He stares at her earrings. They’re refined quartz, glossy and translucent.

He knew she preferred raw quartz when he gave them to her, but he had done his best.

※

He was eighteen years old and his major was undecided. He remembers that.

His grades and test scores had granted him a full ride to the city’s prestigious university. Not that he tried particularly hard in high school — it just so happened that he was a good enough test taker and clever enough to conceal when he had not a single clue what was going on. He never had lofty dreams of getting a degree. He knew it wasn’t for him before graduating, and he still did after, but there he fucking was, because it was free and why not?

He skipped all the freshman orientation activities that weren’t mandatory. The idea of crowds congregating around the cathedral style building where the majority of their classes would be held was enough to make him sweat. His dormitory was far enough from the festivities that he was spared the unbearable fracas, but he traded this fate for another — the frat houses.

The lights were off as he tried to sleep, yet the stadium lighting from the sports center nearby flooded into the room through his unfortunately placed window.

Shane yanked one of his pillows away and placed it firmly over his face. Thoughts of home (and how he finally got away) lulled him to sleep.

※

He met her in his freshman seminar class. His attention was instantly drawn to her hair — long, pastel pink, slightly frizzy from overprocessing.

She was wearing a pristine magenta tank top and tight jeans with brown boots. She was chatting with the girl sitting next to her while they waited for the professor to arrive — he could see her milky pink lip gloss reflecting in the fluorescent lights of the classroom.

She had an interesting aesthetic, but he thought nothing of it.

Then the professor arrived, a young man with a thick black beard. The susurrus of chatter didn’t cease until he had finished setting his materials up and stepped forward to introduce himself.

And then came the icebreaker. The obligatory icebreaker.

“We’re going to go around the class and introduce ourselves. Say your name, major, and where you’re from.”

Shane’s throat tightened then and he tapped his fingers against the edge of his desk. He was going to be last, thankfully, but it did little to abate his anxiety.

She went first.

“My name is Emily! I’m a fashion design major, and I’m from Stardew Valley,” she greeted with a wave, looking around the room until her eyes fell on him. He worried his lip between his teeth.

And so the class went, one by one, dispassionately relating the required information until it was finally his turn.

“I’m Shane. I’m undecided, and I’m from Zuzu City,” he mumbled. Everyone was tired of the introductions by then, and his words only seemed to fall on the professor and Emily’s ears — Emily, who had been watching and paying attention to each person, right down to the end of the line.

※

Contrary to his nature, he approached her first.

They had been given an assignment almost breathtaking in its inconvenience: they would split up into pairs, choose a neighborhood of the city to explore, and write about their findings.

A thin sheen of sweat was forming on Shane’s forehead and he repeatedly pulled the zipper on his jacket up and down to give himself something to do with his hands. Everyone seemed fairly confident in who’d they choose at that point in the semester. Strangely, though, she was sitting alone, her eyes scanning the room.

He got up from his desk and went over to her. She looked up at him, eyes sparkling with pleasant surprise.

“Do you wanna be my partner?” he asked point-blank, hands in his pockets and eyes on the wall.

“Sure!” Her grin tethered his gaze back to her face.

“Really?”

“Yeah. Why not?” Her dark eyebrows creased in confusion.

“I don’t know. I didn’t actually think you’d say yes.”

There was a sage quality to her smile, as if she had a premonition that this would happen.

“I’m glad you took a chance.”

He scratched the back of his neck — his hair was longer then, curly, skirting the line between a decent style and a terrible mullet — and sat in the empty desk next to her.

“What’s your number? I’ll text you.” She whipped out her clunky cell phone and looked at him expectantly, thumb at the ready to flip the phone open. It was then that he noticed the large gold ring on her ring finger with a sizable chunk of raw amethyst adorning the center.

“Uh, I don’t have a cell phone. You just wanna call my room phone?”

“All right, that’s fine! Hey, where do you live?”

Shane wanted to leave, badly, but the clock on the wall in front of them damned him with his sentence: fifteen more minutes.

“Up the hill. In Sandow Hall.”

“Oh, okay. I’m in Lindemann.”

They continued making small talk — she was completely in her element, and he was completely out of his — until the professor called their attention to the fact that it was time to adjourn.

He sighed with relief when she didn’t try to talk to him on their way out, and he made his way back to his dorm silently through the nascent night.

※

They had talked on the phone and made the appropriate plans to meet at the bus stop halfway between Sandow and Lindemann, where they would head to the south side of the city.

He made his way down the hill, blinking away sleep and clutching his jacket closer in an attempt to shield himself from the September chill, and spotted her pink hair tossed in a tight bun. She was wearing a white t-shirt, a denim miniskirt, and black leggings with matching sneakers. He remembers marveling at her ability to look so sharp so early in the damn morning.

She checked the time on her phone and looked up, scanning for any signs of his arrival. When she spotted him up the hill, she grinned and waved. Even from a distance, he was able to hear the jingle of her bangle bracelets as they jostled against each other.

“Hey!”

He gave a polite wave, wondering briefly if it came off as dismissive, and joined her.

“When’s the bus supposed to get here?”

“Ten more minutes, give or take.”

The sun was still ascending to its place in the sky, painting purple shadows and orange highlights across the austere city buildings that surrounded them, and he remembers a distinct wave of nostalgia washing over him — a nostalgia for something he had never experienced.

Emily made small talk which she seemed to know would not be reciprocated until their bus arrived. His shoulders went lax when he saw that it wasn’t crowded.

When they reached the south side, she immediately started surveying the businesses around them.

“Wow, look at all the tattoo parlors. Those are some interesting restaurants, too. Oh, my friend told me about that arcade!”

“I mean, this is cool and all, but aren’t we supposed to go to the residential areas and talk to the people there?” he asked somewhat rhetorically. Still, he was taking in the sight of this pocket of urban living. Despite growing up in the city, he had never been to the south side before.

“The local businesses are important! But you’re right. Let’s go look at the neighborhoods.”

So off they went, and they ended up spending more time trying to navigate the neighborhood than actually talking to people. Nonetheless, it was interesting to see how citizens in this neck of the woods went about their lives. The contrast between them and his own native neighborhood of Zuzu City was considerable.

They made their way back to the bus stop as the sun began to set and, fortuitously, a bus arrived only a few moments later.

They sank into the seats — neither of them had realized just how exhausted they were. Shane vaguely considered if this was because they were having fun. And he did — he did have fun. As if reading his mind (he really wondered sometimes), she spoke up.

“This was fun,” Emily said with a contented sigh. She unpinned her bun and let her hair flow over her shoulders. “I’m glad we were able to do something like this. It’s always humbling to see how other people live...”

She trailed off and yawned. Out of his peripheral vision, he saw her eyes fluttering shut. Sleep sounded pretty damn good to him too, but someone had to stay awake to ensure that they made their stop, and it clearly wasn’t going to be her.

They were halfway to their neighborhood of the city when her head lolled to the side and rested on his shoulder. Her hair fanned across his jacket and he felt the warmth of her breath through the layers of clothing.

Shane’s mind crunched a thousand possibilities. Should he reposition her? Would she wake up and feel freaked out that he was touching her? Should he let her stay? What would she thin when she woke up?

He ultimately settled on letting her stay like that. He sat as still as a statue on the way home.

They finally reached their stop and he gently shook her awake.

“Emily,” he whispered. “We’re here.”

“Five more minutes,” she implored, apparently forgetting where they were.

“We have to get off here or we’ll have to walk all the way back.”

The doors were about to close, so he took her hand and brought her to her feet. She blinked groggily, her mascara slightly smudged from where it must have rubbed off on his jacket.

They disembarked and the bus departed into the night.

“Oh goodness. I guess I got carried away back there,” she said sheepishly. “Sorry about that!”

“It’s fine.” He still felt the phantom touch of her soft, slender fingers in his hand.

“Okay. This was fun! I’ll write my portion tomorrow.” Emily beamed. “And we should hang out again. I mean it. There’s something special about you, Shane. I knew it the moment I met you.”

Taken aback by the sudden intensity, he didn’t know what to say.

“Yeah, we should. I’ll — I’ll talk to you soon,” he stammered.

“Yay! Bye bye!”

Emily waved and walked away toward Lindemann. She seemed so bright, so bright that it hurt his eyes — even in the middle of the night.

※

He wrestled with his debilitating shyness in order to call her frequently. (His roommate was hardly ever in there, much to his relief.)

Sometimes she was out and couldn’t talk; sometimes she was out and assured him that she could talk. Rarely, though, was she home.

“Shane! I was waiting for you to call!” she would say, the grin in her voice almost saccharine to his ears.

He squirmed against the wall uncomfortably, making every attempt to block her words from penetrating his brain’s lines of defense. “Really?”

“Yes, really! Hey, why don’t you come hang out with me and my friends? We’re at Chekhov’s!”

“Um.” His hands grew clammy as his brain sifted through possible excuses.

“It’s not that crowded tonight. There’re only a couple of us. Please?”

That straightforward request, the distant staticky laughter in the background — something about it all filled him with a nostalgia for something he never had, the same way he had felt at the bus stop just a few weeks ago.

“Uh, okay. That’s near the Lindemann Towers, isn’t it?”

“Yes!”

“I’ll be there in fifteen, I guess.”

She let out a sound of profound satisfaction and bid goodbye before hanging up. He instantly rued his decision.

He spritzed some cologne on his neck and ran his fingers through his hair before dragging his feet to the elevator, out of the building, and down the hill. The sun was beginning to set and, for all his bitterness, the city flowing gently into the evening was beautiful.

Shane wandered around aimlessly for a while in a fruitless effort to locate Chekhov’s. When he found it, he wondered how he hadn’t thought to look in the most obvious place. He sauntered inside, searching for a head of pink hair.

He steeled himself and walked up to their booth.

“Hey,” he greeted, immediately feeling stupid.

Emily and her friends all looked up at him in unison, and her face was the only one that betrayed any sort of joy at seeing him.

“Hey! Come sit!” She patted the seat next to her.

He did so. The waiter came to take his order. His nerves had extinguished any hunger he had, and he settled on a beer, flashing his driver’s license confidently. When the waiter left, he turned to Emily to see her regarding him quizzically.

“Wow, are you twenty-one? You don’t look it.”

A blush crept up to the tips of his ears. “It’s a fake...from high school.”

“Oh!” Her eyebrows shot up in surprise, which he found painfully endearing. “It’s okay. I’m not judging you.”

The waiter came back with a bottle of beer and they requested the check. Emily talked to her friends until the bill arrived, which she promptly paid.

“All right, time to get out of here,” she announced, rising to her feet.

“Already?” he asked.

“Yeah. It’s getting a little noisy for my tastes.”

Her friends shuffled out of the booth and she waited for him to join her. One of them informed her that they were going to head back to their respective dormitories.

“All right. See you later!” Emily said to them with a wave. When they were gone, she turned to him.

“Let’s go outside,” she said, taking his free hand and escorting him through the dimly lit twists and turns of the pub until they emerge into the night. He let her do it, and he followed her as he stared absently at his beer.

“Much better, isn’t it? We can go to the park and get some peace and quiet.”

Emily smoothed her dress and started striding along the sidewalk, her hand still in his. It was clear that it wasn’t a romantic gesture, but his face felt unbearably hot anyway.

They were leisurely in their walk to the park. When they finally made it to an isolated section, they scaled the steep slope, lush with emerald grass.

“Ah, this is so nice. You can see the stars from here,” Emily said.

They laid flat on their backs. She continued.

“You know, we’ve been talking for a while now and I still feel like I don’t know anything about you.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah! And I _want_ to know more.”

“What do you want to know?”

Emily rolled onto her side and looked up at him. “What is your family like?”

He bristled and his knuckles went white around the beer bottle. “Bad.”

“Oh...”

He peered down at her and she seemed sad, but she didn’t regard him with pity. She closed her eyes and played with her ring, as if saying a private prayer for him.

“I know you’re undecided, but is there anything you’re interested in?”

Another terrible question. It was at this point that he realized that there was virtually nothing interesting about him, nothing to sustain her interest — or anyone’s, for that matter. His heart felt as brisk then as the air surrounding them.

“Not really. I visited my aunt in Stardew Valley when I was younger and I thought the animals were kinda cool, but that’s about it. Oh, and I guess I liked Italian when I took it in high school.”

“Wow! Are you taking it now?”

“Yep.”

They fell into a comfortable silence before he spoke up.

“What about you? It’s not like you’ve really talked about your family before.”

Emily chuckled, as though this concept was terribly amusing to her.

“I lived with my mother and father, and I have a little sister named Haley. She’s in seventh grade.”

He nodded.

“My mom and dad...they’re pretty well off. I grew up comfortably. We had a big house and we never wanted for anything,” Emily explained, fiddling with her ring. “When I first came to Zuzu for my internship after high school, I was shocked at the things I learned and saw and the people I met. I don’t think I was the same after that. I realized that there had to be something more to life than what had been given to me when I was a kid.”

She grew quiet. Her deep brown eyes were warm and inviting in the vague orange glow of the streetlight a few yards away — it’s a memory that is inexplicably vivid to him, a sight that returned to him for many years after it occurred.

“And there is something more. I know that. I _feel_ that.”

She looked so earnest then, so convinced, and she looked up at the sky for vindication.

“But I wonder — what is it, exactly?”

He looked up at the sky too, taking in that vast black canvas with thousands of pinholes. He wondered what she was seeing and how it was different from what he was seeing, because it simply had to be.

“Maybe I’ll never really know.”

He understood her then, perhaps more than he had ever understood anything. A smile spread across her face, a contrast to the uncertainty she had just expressed.

“And that’s the fun of being alive.”

※

She was popular and her friends became his friends. He found himself going out far more than he ever anticipated, and people laughed at his wry jokes, and people actually wanted him around. It was a foreign feeling, one that he wasn’t sure about.

But Emily preferred to spend time with him alone. At the time, he didn’t understand why. Someone so exuberant, so quixotic, didn’t seem compatible with someone who was grounded to a fault.

Still, they never ran out of things to talk about, and he never got bored.

Those two months are embalmed and preserved in a bell jar on display in the annals of his memory, for he never had anything quite like that since then.

※

Shane doesn’t really know when it started to happen. It was insidious — whispers of it, shadows of it, slinking at the back of his mind and around the corner in the dead of winter, right before finals.

Going to class became a herculean effort, one that he wasn’t strong enough for. He slept later and later, his slumber more restless — he drank more, put on weight.

The running commentary in his brain never stopped for anything. The invasive thoughts, the images — they never stopped, and they eclipsed everything.

※

It was the first week of November and they had planned to go to the art museum across campus. There was some exhibit by some Indian artist, and he wasn’t into that, but he told himself that it was better than staying in bed all day. He liked seeing her face deep in thought, the aesthetics rejuvenating and lifting her soul.

“I’ll meet you there at five! Don’t be late!” she had said playfully before walking back to her dormitory.

So he had agreed. When the day finally came, though, he opened his eyes and saw the time on the clock — three in the afternoon. He still had time. He was still tired. He didn’t have the energy to get out of bed at that moment. Excuses cascaded down his frontal lobe until he felt safe in shutting his eyes once again.

He was jolted awake by the ringing of his room phone and scrambled out of the sheets. He adjusted his flannel pants as he stole a glance at the clock.

Ten. It was ten at night.

“Fuck!” he snarled, pounding his fists against the wall. He knew this would happen. He yanked the phone off the cradle and forced his boiling blood to simmer down.

“Yeah?”

“You have a visitor. They’re waiting downstairs by the lobby.”

Shane set his head against the wall. “Okay. I’ll be right down.”

He didn’t bother changing, instead ambling through the hallway and into the elevator just as he was. He reached the lobby, and Emily stood there with her white spaghetti strap dress and silver hoop earrings and immaculately straightened hair. And he stood there with his stained white t-shirt and the same flannel pajama pants he’d been wearing for three days straight.

She took a few steps toward him, and he instinctively took a few steps back.

“Emily,” he began. His voice shook. He licked his lips. “I’m sorry...”

“Did you forget?”

Her voice was devoid of judgment.

“I didn’t forget.” He didn’t have the heart to lie in that moment.

“Then why did you do that, Shane?” she asked. She was wringing her hands, biting her lip. “I waited until they closed.”

He felt himself paling and surreptitiously placed his fist against the wall for purchase.

“I just want to know...” she continued.

“I don’t know. I don’t fucking know, okay? And I’m sorry. But I have to go back now.”

Clipped and cruel. Self-loathing bound itself to every cell in his body. He turned on his heel to retreat into the building, but not before he heard say something.

“It’s all right,” Emily murmured. “It’s all right...”

※

That incident had a chilling effect for a few days, but she continued to call him after that to check on him.

“Are you sure you’re okay? I’m worried about you.”

“Make sure you’re taking care of yourself. Meditation might help, too.”

“Do you need anything? I’m right by Sandow.”

Yes, he was okay; no, he didn’t need anything — except, perhaps, to be alone.

※

His stomach churned when he walked into his Italian literature class and met his professor’s eyes. He knew he should have skipped like he had initially planned.

Dr. Astrea approached him as the other students chattered and flippantly leafed through their planners without actually looking down at them. His professor was a tall woman with curly black hair reaching past her shoulders and impossibly kind eyes.

“Can you stay after class, Shane? I want to talk to you about something.” He must have paled because she waved her hand and chuckled. “You’re not in trouble. Don’t worry. But it _is_ important.”

“Yeah. Yeah, sure.”

She smiled and he took his seat. It was naturally impossible to pay attention and the cold sweat that broke out across his body made him shiver. After an hour and a half that stretched itself into eternity, they were dismissed. He stayed behind and Dr. Astrea motioned for him to come up to the desk. She folded her hands in her lap and looked him in the eye.

“Your grades have been slipping, and you haven’t been coming to class. I wanted to make sure that everything was okay.”

An incredible urge to escape overcame him, but he willed himself to keep his feet glued to the ground.

“I’ve — well, I guess things could be better.”

His eyes burned and they watered at the corners. The air was dry in the cathedral. He shuffled his feet.

“Shane,” Dr. Astrea said softly. “Have you been to the counseling center?”

Oh, great. He was about to get _that_ spiel.

“No. That’s not really my thing.”

“You should really consider it.”

The burning sensation in Shane’s eyes intensified and he wiped at them with the sleeve of his jacket before saying the the first thing that came to his mind.

“I don’t belong here. I don’t belong in this place, in college — I don’t fucking know.”

Dr. Astrea plucked a tissue from the box on the desk and proffered it to him. He unceremoniously grabbed it and wiped his eyes and blew his nose.

“I do believe you should look into the help we have available to you. But, if you want my personal opinion...I don’t think college is right for everyone. You’re bright, Shane, but you come first. I would hate to see you squander your potential in a place that isn’t a good fit for you.”

She went on for a few more minutes and when she was satisfied that he would be generally fine, she packed her things and left the room.

Her intervention only served to confirm everything that he had suspected was true. Now that he was sitting there, confronted with reality, he wished she had sold him a delusion.

※

He stayed on campus over the winter break and turned Dr. Astrea’s words over in his mind day after day. He hardly left his room.

He came to a decision and he felt freed.

His conversations with Emily were scant, and she seemed to still be wary of him following his standing her up. Nonetheless, they slowly built up to where they were before. Her hurt was mitigated by her intuitive understanding of what was going on.

Emily. How would he leave her?

(Probably the same way he left everything else.)

※

The day before she returned, Shane visited the occult shop on the edge of campus and looked for a parting gift.

He thought of her amethyst ring and looked for a pair of earrings to match, but there were none to be found. There was jade ( _wisdom, balance, purity_ ), obsidian ( _protection, positivity, mindfulness_ ), and rose quartz ( _compassion, love, peace_ ). He didn’t buy into any of this garbage, but it didn’t matter if he did. It wasn’t about him for once.

His eyes settled on the rose quartz earrings in the shape of tear drops with silver filigree at the base. He thought of her hair, her lip gloss, compassion, love, peace.

He walked out of the store with a blue box nestled in his hand.

※

She arrived back on campus in the midst of an unrelenting January blizzard. They weren’t taking any classes together this semester, much to his dismay.

They still spent time together as they always did. But as he sat across from her in a booth at Chekhov’s, he receded into the depths of his mind; as she laughed, he churned the knowledge of his imminent departure over and over in his head.

To his credit, he had hoped that things would get better. That he’d wake up and have a fraction of the zest for life that she did. That he’d wake up and break his daily routine of going to the liquor store with his fucking fake ID.

But he woke up, day after day, and the warmth of her embrace simply couldn’t penetrate — nothing could.

※

A month before the end of the semester — when he’d really waited far too long — they walked through the park after their respective night classes. It was her idea.

(“I just thought we could get away from the hustle and bustle for a while. It’s good to be around nature, you know!”)

They sat in the same place they had sat several months ago after their excursion into Chekhov’s. The March frost had melted and the grass was regaining its vibrant green hue. A chill passed through him.

They sat in customary silence, ensconcing themselves in it, until he broke the silence. It was now or never.

“Emily,” he said. “I’m leaving.”

“So am I. I’m going back to Stardew Valley for the summer,” she offered, twisting a tendril of pink hair around her finger.

He shook his head. “No. I’m leaving and I’m not coming back.”

It was then that she turned to him, eyes devoid of their typical gleam and instead brimming with confusion. Her pupils were large, questioning, and she didn’t say anything. She was waiting for him to elaborate.

“I just...can’t do,” (he gestured toward the park, toward himself) “ _this_ anymore.”

She nodded and swallowed thickly.

“There’s something wrong with me, and I don’t think I’m gonna get better if I stay here,” he continued, his voice barely above a whisper.

She slid her hand across the grass and rested it on top of his. Her amethyst ring shimmered in the starlight.

“It’s okay,” she said. “You’re sick and you need to get better. I understand that.”

But her voice was breaking and her eyeliner was beginning to run into the troughs of her eyes. He didn’t know what was going through her mind — whether she was sad because she was losing a friend or because of empathy for his plight — but nonetheless, he threaded his fingers through hers and squeezed her hand.

※

He spent his last afternoon on campus with her. He was due to move out early the next morning.

They went to Chekhov’s, a coffee place she had always wanted to try, and walked through the park one last time. Her fingers lightly brushed against his at random intervals and that was all he needed.

When it came time to bid their farewells for the summer (and possibly ever) they stood outside the cathedral. Students were littered about on the lawn — some reading, some on their laptops, some kissing, some playing frisbee — and the snowcone vendor was parked at the side of the street. He felt something akin to an ache.

Emily worried her lip and twisted her ring then, and the cathedral receded into the foreground.

“Goodbye. I’m going to miss you!” she proclaimed with a barely contained sob. Christ, she sounded excited even when she was miserable.

She threw her arms around him and he allowed it, rubbing awkward circles around the small of her back.

She withdrew slightly and looked up at him. “I’ll always be here if you need me.”

“I have something for you. Hold out your hand.”

Her eyes widened in befuddlement, but she did as he said. She extended her dainty hand, with short unpainted nails, and waited. Shane fished in his pocket for the small blue box containing the earrings and gingerly removed it, as though the slightest touch might sever this precious final tether.

“Open this when you get home,” he said, placing the box in her outstretched hand.

She raised her eyebrows in surprise, in the way he had come to adore, hair dancing around her face in the spring breeze.

“Shane, you didn’t have to — ”

He interrupted her with a dismissive wave of his hand. “I don’t wanna hear it. You’re probably not gonna like it anyway.”

Emily shook her head and looked upset then — at least, as upset as she could look.

“I already love it.”

He had to leave then, and not just because the sun was beginning to set, plunging the world into vermilion and gold.

“Goodbye, Emily.”

“Goodbye, Shane.”

He turned his back to her.

He dragged his feet across the busy streets of Zuzu and began the trek up the steep hill that took him through the university hospitals and the gym that doubled as the sports center. The balmy April air was a welcome change of pace from the bitter winter that permeated the city a mere three weeks ago.

But that was a distraction, a meaningless observation, and when Shane finally reached his room, tears began to course down his face, disinhibited by the absence of his roommate.

He threw himself on his bed, head unceremoniously hitting the cinderblock wall, and sobbed. He thought of Emily and her unconditional love for him; he thought of their other friends and their acceptance of him; he thought of Dr. Astrea and her faith in him.

He thought of the sickness that tainted his neurons, the illness that held him hostage.

He thought of Emily’s offer to him and his promise to her.

He clung to the idea of it — like a raft in the stormy sea.

※

But things didn’t turn out the way he intended, as is the case with life at large. He found new relationships, as did she (he imagines); he didn’t bother going to trade school and unskilled jobs were the only ones his brain would allow him to manage; he made new friends and they died, and in the blink of an eye, he was twenty-eight and a father, and Emily was a distant memory.

Picking up the phone to call his aunt was an admission of the failures that had been brewing for a decade.

He moved to Pelican Town in Stardew Valley with Jas. An overwhelming and all-consuming sense of loneliness gripped him, a loneliness that reached a fever pitch when he visited Pelican Town’s saloon and saw her there. Her hair was short, a stylishly disheveled pixie, and it was electric blue now. Her pink gloss had been replaced by refined red lipstick. The moment he laid eyes upon her, though, he saw a familiar kindness that he never allowed himself to accept.

And the moment she laid eyes upon him, every feature lit up — she recognized him instantly, despite his weight gain, despite the exhaustion and purple bags that underscored his dull eyes.

“Shane? Shane? Is that you? It’s you!” she shouted, setting down the glass she had been cleaning.

“...It’s me, alright,” he muttered in response. It had been ten years and he was assailed with the fact that he had not gotten better since the last time he had seen her; he had, in fact, gotten worse.

“Wow! I knew I’d see you again, but it feels like we just saw each other yesterday. What brings you to Stardew Valley?”

He sighed and ran a hand through his hair, as he was wont to do. “I live here now.”

Her smile waned as she processed the significance of this.

“Come over here and tell me about it,” Emily beseeched gently.

And he did.

※

Yet, he’s not doing too badly now. Clean for months, getting on his feet — the feeling of a smile isn’t foreign on his lips anymore.

“And one root beer for Mr. Shane!” Emily declares today as she turns around to face him. She strides up to the bar and slides the stein over the polished wood.

“Thanks.” He starts drinking with an inexplicable sense of urgency.

“Hey.”

He raises his eyebrows and peers at her over the thick rim of the glass. She looks contemplative — sober, even.

“Yeah?”

Her thoughtful expression morphs into one of gratitude, a small smile and a dim glimmer in her eyes. Her glossy lipstick catches the light.

“Congratulations.”

His chest tightens. He smiles back.

“Thanks, Emily.”

Her earrings sway as she turns away.


End file.
